quote:Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom on the subject of DNA, scientist have proven that we are all descended from a single woman, whom the dubbed mitochondrial eve.
or as the bible says. Eve.
I doubt that such a thing in provable. I could believe that all people can be proved to come from the same family, kind of like a evolutionary choke-point, so that all people in that family shared some DNA, but that we can prove that we all come from one woman....that''s just not possible (with current tech., and our level of understanding...).
I must agree. We are about as far off proving that as we are proving evolution.
quote:Original post by Imperil You are completely wrong in this context. Creation vs. Evolution can be discussed completely without mentioning religion if deemed so.
There are many scientists that do not believe in God, but they knowingly admit Evolution is flawed and false.
You have to look at the two as a science, not a religion vs. science.
Are you purposely trying not to make sense? Logical Induction:
Creation => Created by something => what kind of something? => God/higher power
Evolution => Evolved from something => which evolved from something else => all the way to the dawn of life => which came about randomly
Not to mention the fact that many Creationism arguments are fully centered around doctrine in the Bible saying that the earth was created in 7 days, somewhere around 6000 years ago, etc.
Point is, if you don''t believe in God, it becomes very hard to believe in Creationism. Even if you think that some other higher power was at cause, believing in a higher power is one of the first criteria of religion.
And btw, I''d really appreciate a link to these scientists who are against both creationism and evolution. I''d really like to see what they have to say on the subject.
Some of you seem to have really bizarre concepts of what a species is. Sandman, if you'd like to give your personal definition of what you think should constitute a "species" feel free, since you don't like mine, apparently.
Regardless, outRider, the finches could most certainly breed if there were an island with both types of nuts, which makes your reproduction argument environment-driven rather than species-driven, and therefore severely misleading. And, there's of course the telling realization that the trees haven't developed opposing nuts so as to avoid having their offspring eaten by well-adjusted finches.
I'm kind of amazed that people are still trying to argue natural selection as equivalent to intelligent selection. You apparently are not aware of the amount of travel and other effort it takes to enforce intelligent selection when breeding animals. Left to their own devices they really don't change much from the status that their human masters left them in, other than no longer being tame more or less. I do find it ironic that the favorite moth example is also a result of human activity, even if not on purpose. *wry smile*
And, to whoever asked the question about whether I care if a higher power evolved things (I'm being lazy today), I already answered that in my comment regarding apathetic creationism.
-fel
[edited by - felisandria on November 4, 2003 3:19:15 PM]
~ The opinions stated by this individual are the opinions of this individual and not the opinions of her company, any organization she might be part of, her parrot, or anyone else. ~
quote:Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom on the subject of DNA, scientist have proven that we are all descended from a single woman, whom the dubbed mitochondrial eve.
or as the bible says. Eve.
Err no, scientists have proven that mitochondria are extremely resistant to genetic variation, and therefore everyone''s mitochondria looks pretty much identical.
Then a bunch of creationists came along and began jumping to conclusions.
I seem to remember that the reason for the similarities was due to the fact that humans were very close to extinction at one point in time (perhaps less than 20,000 individuals worldwide)? Or was this something else?
Your knuckles whiten upon the wheel, This will be the last thing your hands will feel, Your final flight can''t be delayed, All sky, no land, it''s so serene, Your big fat lips let go a scream, You fry and melt, I love the scene.
quote:Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom on the subject of DNA, scientist have proven that we are all descended from a single woman, whom the dubbed mitochondrial eve.
or as the bible says. Eve.
Err no, scientists have proven that mitochondria are extremely resistant to genetic variation, and therefore everyone''s mitochondria looks pretty much identical.
Then a bunch of creationists came along and began jumping to conclusions.
I seem to remember that the reason for the similarities was due to the fact that humans were very close to extinction at one point in time (perhaps less than 20,000 individuals worldwide)? Or was this something else?
I''ve heard that also. Not sure if it is true, but it is a well-known, accepted "possibility". I''ve even heard estimates rangine from 1,000-5,000 humans left. Also, due to the small number of population, inbreeding occurs more often. Most often we get weird fucked up mutations, but sometimes they benefit. Inbreeding can be considered a last ditch effort by a dying population to go "all or nothing" when the chips are down.
Evolution is just as much a fairy tale as creation. We take better to the fairy tale of evolution because we are told about Dinosaurs in 1st grade. There is a ton of "evidence" for both sides (circumstantial evidence).
I personally don''t see how over a few billion years that a something with the complexity of even a wrist watch would randomly come into being, much less living things, intelligence, animals, and humans.
If we objectively consider the all of the circumstantial evidence (and that''s all there is for either side) then you will see that there are many more holes in the evolution side. There is actually quite a bit of evidence against evolution. Things that happen that shouldn''t happen if evolution is true. It is possible, and quite likely IMO (based on the evidence against evolution), that the age of the earth is far less than evolutionsist believe. If God created the universe, he could have easily created it with everything in place (stars billions of light years away, whatever he wants).
I''ve read quite a bit on creationism, and just about every question that people have against it in this thread (all of this incest stuff is one example) is based on ignorance. There are reasonable explainations for all of these things. "It doesn''t make sense to me" and "I can''t think of an explaination for this" is not counter-evidence. It''s ignorance.
Another example is the whole dinosaur bit. The bible says that in the beginnings of time, there were two bodies of water. One that we think of as oceans and another that was an expanse of water in the sky (like a thicker atmosphere). This could have accounted for much higher oxygen levels in the air, which could have accounted for why people lived so much longer back then, and why lizards grew to be so big ("dinosaurs"). It is proven that many lizards will continue to grow to be very large until they die, in the right conditions (such as an evironment with high oxygen concentrations). In an environment like the one the bible describes, it would not be suprising if lizards simply lived much longer lives, and continued to grow throughout their lives, becomming "dinosaurs". People reported seeing dragons as recent as the previous century, and it was apparently thought of as something quite common in the early 1900''s. If you can find a dictionary from that time, dragons are written about as things that existed. Back to the oxygen thing...it is also proven that oxygen can go a long way to healing. Remember the baby who fell into the well? Her leg was pinned in a way that cut off cirulation, and upon being resuced her leg was black ("dead"). One doctor suggested putting her in an oxygen chamber. She lived, and so did her leg. The bible is full of things that lead to a healthier life. There is tons of writing on this kind of stuff, and most people have never read a thing about creationism, but they know what their first grade teacher told them (who they likely didn''t even know, who was being paid by someone else they didn''t know to tell them what someone else who they didn''t know told them to teach).
If the bible is true, then there are demons living in this world whose sole purpose is to lie, steal, and destroy. It''s not a coincidence that most scientists don''t believe in God. They might be being led astray by demons. Demons surely know more about how the world works than we do. They could throw us little crumbs here and there, and we would think how smart we are and spend our whole lives working to discover new things that really don''t matter. We develop things like medicine that are "good" so that we think we''re really creating a better society, and continue on spending our entire lives trying to solve new problems. Watch the Mothman Prophecies. It''s a perfect example, and true story, of demons tempting one man down the road of wild goose chases. Science has discovered a lot of things, and none of those things deal with the things that matter most in this world. Religion, on the other hand, deals with those things that matter.
Even without doing a ton of research into this issue, you can easiliy see that the world we live in is full of things that were intelligently designed, if you are willing to take an objective look. Most people aren''t, because they were told lies in 1st grade.
quote:Original post by Imperil You are completely wrong in this context. Creation vs. Evolution can be discussed completely without mentioning religion if deemed so.
There are many scientists that do not believe in God, but they knowingly admit Evolution is flawed and false.
You have to look at the two as a science, not a religion vs. science.
Are you purposely trying not to make sense? Logical Induction:
Creation => Created by something => what kind of something? => God/higher power
Evolution => Evolved from something => which evolved from something else => all the way to the dawn of life => which came about randomly
Not to mention the fact that many Creationism arguments are fully centered around doctrine in the Bible saying that the earth was created in 7 days, somewhere around 6000 years ago, etc.
Point is, if you don't believe in God, it becomes very hard to believe in Creationism. Even if you think that some other higher power was at cause, believing in a higher power is one of the first criteria of religion.
And btw, I'd really appreciate a link to these scientists who are against both creationism and evolution. I'd really like to see what they have to say on the subject.
In conclusion, your opinion is wrong.
LOL you must mean that Stephen Hawking's opinion is wrong. As well as MANY other scientists. A lot of people that believe in creation do not believe in God, they believe in alien races or other things.
So sorry it isn't my opinion, it's one of the top physisist in the world and many others that I've read on.
[edited by - Imperil on November 4, 2003 3:37:10 PM]
quote:Original post by felisandria Some of you seem to have really bizarre concepts of what a species is. Sandman, if you''d like to give your personal definition of what you think should constitute a "species" feel free, since you don''t like mine, apparently.
My definition of species isn''t really important, because it isn''t me that needs convincing that speciation events have been observed.
In order to observe a ''speciation'' event, surely you need to have some kind of objective definition of what constitutes a ''species''? Otherwise we could invent speciation events whenever we felt like it (I''m a different species to my parents, because I just decided I was!) or miss speciation events when they do occur. (That cat with tentacles growing out of it''s arse is still a cat isn''t it?)
I''ll bever be able to convince you that a speciation event has been observed until you can define for me what you consider constitutes a different ''species''. The definition you gave me earlier seemed far too vague and ill defined for me to work with - so I''d like something a bit more rigorous. What makes a cat a different species to a dog? "Because it''s a cat and not a dog" is not a good enough answer.
quote:Original post by felisandria Some of you seem to have really bizarre concepts of what a species is. Sandman, if you''d like to give your personal definition of what you think should constitute a "species" feel free, since you don''t like mine, apparently.
My definition of species isn''t really important, because it isn''t me that needs convincing that speciation events have been observed.
In order to observe a ''speciation'' event, surely you need to have some kind of objective definition of what constitutes a ''species''? Otherwise we could invent speciation events whenever we felt like it (I''m a different species to my parents, because I just decided I was!) or miss speciation events when they do occur. (That cat with tentacles growing out of it''s arse is still a cat isn''t it?)
I''ll bever be able to convince you that a speciation event has been observed until you can define for me what you consider constitutes a different ''species''. The definition you gave me earlier seemed far too vague and ill defined for me to work with - so I''d like something a bit more rigorous. What makes a cat a different species to a dog? "Because it''s a cat and not a dog" is not a good enough answer.
This is not a flame. But IMHO I think we should take the scientific definition of species and not that of "Sandman" =]
quote:Original post by Imperil LOL you must mean that Stephen Hawking''s opinion is wrong. As well as MANY other scientists. A lot of people that believe in creation do not believe in God, they believe in alien races or other things.
So sorry it isn''t my opinion, it''s one of the top physist in the world and many others that I''ve read on.
